Scuderia Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were not satisfied with the SF-25 after disappointing Friday Free Practice sessions at the 2025 F1 Spanish GP. However, while Hamilton wrote the day off as “not fun” despite a strong FP1, Leclerc remained cautiously optimistic, as the Italian team hopes to unlock more performance ahead of Saturday’s Qualifying.
Hamilton deems Friday practice runs “not fun”
Lewis Hamilton endured a difficult second practice session, unable to match his early pace from FP1. After finishing the opening session in third, the Briton slipped to 11th in FP2, revealing that his time on track was far from enjoyable.
“Not fun. It’s a beautiful place, the weather has been amazing, but no, not a good day,” Hamilton said after the session.
The seven-time World Champion has faced ongoing challenges adapting to life at Ferrari and has yet to find consistency in the SF-25. Despite a stronger performance in Monaco, where he finished fifth, Hamilton admitted motivation remains elusive in the face of ongoing technical setbacks.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m motivating the team at the moment,” he said, adding, “You just keep your head down and keep working away. You just don’t give up. You keep going, you keep pushing, you keep trying to focus on solving the issues, which we’ll try to do.”
Hamilton stated that he had had high hopes for the Spanish GP weekend, after Ferrari’s promising performance in Monaco. However, he was left frustrated after his performance failed to meet his expectations. Having identified a major contributor to his lacking performance, Hamilton hopes that Ferrari can have things fixed ahead of Qualifying on Saturday.
“But you arrive on Friday and are hoping for a good day, and it doesn’t go well. Then you have a weekend in Monaco, where suddenly the car feels great. Honestly, I thought the car was going to be good today. It wasn’t too bad in [F]P1, but [F]P2 was much worse. Naturally, that’s frustrating for everyone, but we had some problems, which meant we were losing some downforce. Hopefully, with that fixed for tomorrow, we’ll be in a better place.”
Leclerc hopes to “unlock” more performance
While Leclerc fared slightly better—ending FP2 in fifth—he also struggled to extract the full potential of the Ferrari. Nevertheless, the Monégasque driver struck a more positive tone, suggesting Ferrari’s package has untapped speed that could emerge during Qualifying.
“Honestly, it was a bit more positive than what we expected coming here, so that is good,” he said. “There is more performance in the car, which I hope we will unlock tomorrow, come Qualifying.”
“Yeah, there is still quite a bit of work to be done, but I don’t think that we are too far out. We’ll focus on a few areas tonight, and let’s see tomorrow.”
As the Scuderia prepares for a critical Saturday in Barcelona, both drivers will look to build on Friday’s mixed results.
